New Gears of War 3 Map Pack Coming January 17th

You know what really grinds my gears? A lack of awesome new Gears of War 3 DLC content. Thankfully, Microsoft and Epic games know that daddy needs his sweet, sweet medicine, and are bringing gamer junkies like myself the Fenix Rising Map Pack on January 17th.

The map pack will retail for 800 Microsoft Points (free to Season Pass holders), and includes five new maps: Academy (grounds of the Oracle Academy), Anvil (the ruined shell of the once mighty fortress of Anvegad), Depths (the underwater processing centre on Azura), Escalation (the Haldane Hall estate gardens) and The Slab (grounds of Jacinto Maximum Security Prison). Players also gain access to four new character skins, Recruit Clayton and Thrashball Cole (limited edition) for the COGs, and Savage Kantus (limited edition) and Savage Marauder for the Locusts.

Beyond the standard fare, the map pack also comes with a new multiplayer ranking feature known as"'Re-Up." This feature works essentially the same as Call of Duty's Prestige mode, letting players who've maxed out their ranking reset their stats, starting over at Level 1 while keeping their TrueSkill rating. Each time a player "Re-Ups" their rank icon color changes, (in order: Bronze, Red, Green and Gold), while also earning an exclusive weapon skill for each Re-Up beyond the bronze tier.

In short, plenty of new content to keep you gear-heads happy. Just try and keep that holiday cash stored away until the 17th!

About The Author

Vito Gesualdi
GameZone.com Senior Editor, DraftMagic.com Editor-in-Chief, NoNoComedy.com Contributor, and the hardest working man in show business. King of video walkthroughs for new games. Follow me on the twitters @VitoGesualdi.